I am drawn like a magnet into my family’s past. Not out of nostalgia, but as a way of projecting my own future, a future rooted in deep history. Yet much of that history is clouded and, to my sorrow, mostly unrecoverable. My grandfather’s generation is gone, having died in America or been killed by the Nazis. Most of their children, my parent’s generation, have passed on. I am left with scraps of the past: some old photos, some recorded and written histories, and what I’ve been able to discover through genealogical research.

And yet, even with this limited information, I’ve been able to trace the outlines of the lives of some of my grandfather’s siblings. I’m especially drawn to my grandfather’s sister, Chanche (pronounced Chantzeh). A few years ago, after some genealogical finds on JRI-Poland, I attempted a deep dive into her life. The piece, Searching for Chanche, tried to stitch together all the information I’d discovered about her: her birth, youth, marriage, family and death. Through that process, I felt I got to know her. I sensed a connection to her, some kind of love for a person I’d never met, feelings that make her murder that much more painful.

She was named Chana Golda, but she was known by her yiddish name, Chanche. She was born on January 16, 1903, three or four years after my grandfather, his parent’s eldest child. (Various documents list my grandfather’s birth year as 1899 or 1900, and it’s possible he himself was unsure what year he was born.) She was a twin, but her brother, Kelman, lived only a year.

Chanche was the sibling with whom my grandfather was closest, both age-wise and emotionally. Yet I don’t have a single photograph of them together; indeed, I don’t have a single photograph of my grandfather in Poland. The last time they saw each other was sometime in 1920, when my grandfather left home after being  drafted into the Polish army during the Polish-Russian War. Little could either of them know that he would never again return home. Sometime in 1921, my grandfather went AWOL and smuggled himself into Germany. By Passover, 1923, he had managed to get to Palestine and then, after marrying in my grandmother, immigrated to America in 1927.

Fortunately, a number of photos of Chanche survive, and they give a sense of her personality and interests.

Here she stands, as a young teen, looking quite self-possessed, with her younger sisters, Chaya Sara and Paiche.  She appears to me as the kind of person who enjoyed playing the role of big sister and being a role model to her younger siblings.

This next photograph, taken maybe a year or so later, shows Chanche seated between her younger brother, Shmulke, and sister Chaya Sara, as the latter holds on to her. Chanche holds a book, perhaps reading to them.

As a young woman, she joined and was active in a Zionist Youth group, a fact I discovered by chance when I stumbled upon a photograph of her in the Yizkor (Memorial) Book of my great grandfather’s home town, Kolno. She is seated in the front row, second from the left, holding the group’s banner.

Her ease in social settings, as well as the esteem in which she was held by her peers, is evidenced by this photo of her, seated front and center, with her friends.

Another photo shows Chanche as a young woman with her mother, Sheindl. I sense some kind of emotional distance between them, certainly less of a sense of connection than Chanche exhibits in social settings with her peers.

In 1926, at the age of 23, Chanche married into a prominent Zambrow family, the Tykocinskis. Her husband’s name was Max (Mordechai). They had two children, Solik (Bezalel) and Shlomele (Shlomo).

I have only one photograph of Chanche with her husband, Max. It was probably taken on one of Chaya Sara’s visits to her family. Chaya Sara and Chanche walk together arm in arm, showing that the two sisters remained close.

I’m certain that Chanche and my grandfather kept up a regular correspondence during the twenty years that they were separated. They would have stayed in touch about their growing families. Though immigration to the United States was highly restricted after 1924, especially for families with children, they may have discussed whatever possible strategies existed for Chanche and her family to immigrate to the United States. Maybe Chanche expressed her desire to fulfill her Zionist dream of making aliyah (immigrating to Palestine). Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Chanche certainly would have expressed her concerns about the economic uncertainties and growing anti-Semitism in Poland. If only a single letter survived.

But one piece–small but significant–of correspondence did survive.

I discovered it a few years ago, about five years after my mother died. It was in my parents’ album of family photos. The album included iconic family photos that I’d come to recognize: of Chanche, of her siblings and mother, my grandfather working as a chalutz (pioneer) building roads in Palestine as well as photos of my grandparent’s wedding in Palestine in 1925.

Among these familiar photos I noticed one I’d never before seen. It was a postcard. It was from Chanche.

How did I know it was from her? Two reasons. There was a photograph of her on one side of the card. An unusual one, to be sure, but I recognized her. She appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties. Looking at the picture, I felt as if I were seeing a dear friend after a long time. It showed Chanche playfully posing among some plants and trees, simultaneously hiding and revealing herself. She had that same kind of direct, piercing gaze I’d come to recognize from the other photographs of her.

On the other side of the card was some yiddish writing. In case there were any doubt about who the card was from, on the card was written, in my mother’s distinctive handwriting, “Chanche.”

The problem, as is evident from the photo, was that Chanche’s words were all but completely obscured by paper and tape that had adhered to the card from the album. I could make out a few of the yiddish words–ווייט, און, מיט, זיך–but not enough to discern what she had written. I could clearly see the word זמברוב, “Zambrow,” from where she had sent the card. I desperately wanted to read what she had written, but I didn’t know how to remove the tape. Most of all, I didn’t want to damage this precious artifact.

I had several ideas over the years. I thought about bringing it to a museum to consult with someone who does art restoration. I once asked a speaker who gave a talk at a genealogy conference about the historical importance of postcards in genealogical research. She suggested I try using dental floss. I tried. It didn’t work. The tape was glued on too strongly.

The matter rested for a couple of years. Finally, in the long days at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, I got the idea to pose the question to a Facebook group that I recently joined that deals with Polish Jewish genealogy. Someone responded with a recommendation to use a double ended metal spatula. I’d never heard of this kind of implement. The person sent me a link to the item on Amazon. It cost only six dollars. So I ordered it. It’s made especially to pry loose old photos from albums. Who knew such a tool existed?

And so, one Sunday evening, I cleared off everything from my table and sat down with the postcard and the spatula. I began, slowly and carefully, to scrap off the encrusted tape and paper. As I began scrapping, small flakes became dislodged. Hidden letters began appearing.

I realized I could press a little harder without destroying any of her writing. Eventually the numbers 22 appeared, indicating that the postcard had been written in 1922. In addition, the first four words became legible, צום אנדיינקען מיין ברודר, “to remember my brother,” confirming that the card was indeed written to my grandfather.

I kept scraping for about forty-five minutes, until it seemed nothing else could be dislodged. I had even scraped off my mother’s handwriting. I was amazed that in less than an hour, I had uncovered a message that had been written nearly 100 years ago. I took the flakes that had obscured the words and put them into a bowl.

I looked at the card. Not all the words were perfectly visible, but they could be deciphered, including the important last word: חנטשע, “Chanche.”

The words read: “צום אנדיינקען מיין ברודר, וועלכע איז ווייט, ווייט פון מיר, און מיט וועלכן איך וואולט זיך געוואלט שנעל זען. דיין יונגר שוועסטער, חנטשע”

While my Yiddish knowledge is passable, I wanted to make sure I knew what she had written. I immediately posted a photo of the card to the same Facebook book that had recommended the metal spatula asking for a translation. Within a day, someone had translated it as follows:

“To remember my brother, who is far, far from me, and who I would like to see soon. Your younger sister, Chanche.” The card was dated August 14, 1922.

August 14, 1922. Where was her brother at this time? I don’t  know for certain. I know that in February, 1922, my grandfather was in Germany. I have a photograph, the earliest photo I have of him, that shows him with his mother, Sheindl, who had journeyed from Zambrow to Berlin. The purpose of her visit was likely to provide him with money and/or documents he would need to make aliyah (immigrate) to Palestine. It was the last time either of them would see each other again.

On the back of his card, my grandfather wrote, in Hebrew: “In remembrance, when I was in Berlin, before I travelled to the Land of Israel. Berlin, the month of Shvat, 1922.” (The month of Shvat in 1922 corresponded with February of that year.)

By April 1, 1923, my grandfather was in Palestine, for next photograph I have of him, dated Passover, 1923 (which began on the first of April), shows him in Tel Aviv with a group of fellow Jews from Zambrow.

What I don’t know is when he left Germany for Palestine (nor how he actually journeyed there). It’s possible, perhaps probable, that Chanche sent the card to him just before he set out for Palestine. In any event, by the time the above photograph was taken, my grandfather surely had his sister’s postcard with him.

What were Chanche’s thoughts when she wrote the card? Did she think she would see him again? Maybe she thought she would make aliyah and join him in Palestine. But that was not to be. Four years later, she married. She became a mother to two sons. She left Zambrow and moved to Grudziadz in Western Poland. Meanwhile my grandfather immigrated to America and settled in New York City. I’m sure the correspondence with his favorite sister continued. Yet the idea that they would see each other again become less and less likely. He became a father to three daughters and was busy trying to make a living as a wholesaler of paper goods in the Lower East Side. Even if he thought it was safe to return to Poland, he had neither the time nor money to afford to take a trip back there. Surely they held out hope that, somewhere, sometime, they would figure out a way to see each other. In the end, the Germans made sure that no reunion would ever occur.

Chanche’s words speak poetically of the pain of distance, separation, longing. It is difficult for us, living in an age of instant communication and air travel, to conceive of the near absolute rupture of family ties caused by immigration in those times. Once my grandfather left Poland, having absconded from his army unit, any chance he would return to Poland was negligible. Yet her words–“my brother, who is far, far from me, and who I would like to see soon”–speak of the deep desire for connection. Even more, they speak not only of physical distance, but of existential separation, of a loved one being “far from me.” Once my grandfather learned that she and her family had been killed, Chanche’s sorrow came to express his own.

For over 40 years, until his death in 1964, my grandfather kept Chanche’s card with him. He must have taken it when he left Palestine for America in 1927. And then when and his family moved back to Palestine in 1935. And then again when he returned from Palestine in 1936. And through the moves from one tenement to another in the Lower East Side. He held on to it as a keepsake, a remembrance of his favorite sister, of the family he had left behind in Zambrow, family he could never see again.

In 1946, my grandfather received the definitive news that all of his family had been killed. He sat shiva, for his mother, for Chanche, and for his two other sisters. He continued to mark their deaths every year on the day designated as the official memorial day for the Jews of Zambrow, the 18th of Shvat, the date that corresponds to January 22, 1943, when the last Jews of Zambrow met their end at Auschwitz. He himself died on January 26, 1964, the 12th of Shvat, after he suffered a heart attack walking home from shul on Friday night. He was only 64 or 65 years old. A few years ago, I had a conversation with my grandfather’s niece, and she didn’t think the correspondence of the dates was a coincidence. The pain of his family’s murder weighed heavily on him. He was alive. They weren’t.

Over the years, my grandfather must have communicated to his children the depth of his feelings for Chanche. He certainly showed the card to his family and told them stories about her. My mother knew about it, for, at some point after her father died, she took the card, perhaps when we moved from New York in 1965 or on one of her visits to my grandmother’s home. My mother made sure that Chanche’s postcard was preserved. She took it, and, so history would not forget Chanche, she wrote Chanche’s name on the card and put it in the family photo album. And then I came along, many years later, and discovered it.

Chanche’s card is the only writing I have from any of my Polish relatives who perished during the war. It is nearly 100 years old. As expressively as any words, Chanche writes of the longing for family connectedness, connections that were so difficult to maintain during those times, connections that were so brutally severed. They speak not only of the deep love of siblings but also of connections between past and present. She and her brother were separated by space, she and I by time. The task of my generation is to uncover the clues that previous generations left, to recreate our ancestors’ lives and preserve their memories. And so it falls to me to preserve Chanche’s card, her words, her memory. The process of uncovering, of peeling off the layers, continues.